Every Morning
by Jetamors
Summary: It's never easy to move to a new place. Chad's first few weeks in Karakura Town are no exception. Gen.


Title: Every Morning  
Rating: G  
Summary: Chad's first few weeks in Karakura. Gen, 900 words.  
Notes: Thank you to shayheyred for looking it over!

On the first day, the day he arrived, Yasutora found Karakura Town very strange. It was different from his memories of Okinawa, and very different from Rosario. As he walked from the train station to his apartment, the faces of the people he passed were all closed, and everyone seemed to be perpetually hurrying.

The landlady in his new apartment had a squint, and she was missing the pinky finger of her right hand. She ushered him into her sitting room, cluttered with pictures of relatives and old friends, and trapped him there for a long time, alternately reassuring him that she would look after him like a mother and berating him for any future thuggish behavior. He struggled to follow her rapid-fire Japanese (he'd forgotten more than he thought, though it was coming back quickly), and tried to nod at the appropriate times. He arranged for the rest of his things to be sent to the apartment when they reached Japan, but it was still an eternity before he managed to break away.

His new apartment, when he finally got to see it, came furnished, but it still looked bare and unfinished. Yasutora unpacked his luggage, put away the clothes he'd brought with him, and hung his favorite poster over the bed. It helped, a little. He turned on the television and tried not to think about his grandfather.

Despite his best efforts, he dreamed about his grandfather that night. They were fishing, something Yasutora had never actually done. He pulled up a fish, but when he turned around his grandfather was no longer in the boat. Yasutora knew somehow that when he turned back to the fishing rod, his grandfather would be at the end of the line instead of the fish. And so he refused to look, trying to deny that horrible knowledge.

He woke up with tears on his face.

The first week in Karakura, nothing went right. He had trouble reading the signs, the shipping company couldn't find his things, and everything in the shops was far too expensive. The language barrier didn't help either. He'd say a few words and then stop, unsure whether he was speaking in Spanish or Japanese. When he rode the train up to the airport to the shipping company's office, nobody would sit next to him. At night, he held the coin around his neck tightly, and tried desperately not to think. His dreams were still in Spanish.

One night, coming home from the train station, Yasutora passed the local temple just as they rang the evening bell. It was then that he realized that the sound he'd unconsciously been missing was the tolling of the church bells in Rosario. Japan didn't seem to have any churches.

At the end of the week, his things finally came, but then he had a dozen boxes littering the small apartment.

The first day of the second week in Karakura was when he began school. Before it even started, he broke up a fight and met a boy with loud orange hair, named something like Strawberry. He looked mean, but seemed like a good person, and Yasutora started to feel a little less nervous.

School itself was just as confusing as he had feared, unfortunately. Yasutora took notes, half in romanji and half in kana, and rolled the words around in his mind during breaks until he could understand what they meant. Things weren't completely bad, though. He was ready to eat alone at lunchtime, but the Strawberry boy waved him over. When the boys from the morning fight tried to ambush him after school, he spotted them in time, and took a different route back to the apartment.

That night, he dreamed about the mole on the inside of this mother's left elbow. It was a dream he'd had before, and he was almost happy when he woke up.

He unpacked his guitar on the third day of the second week. The strings were in a horrible state, but it responded well enough after he tuned it. He strummed through the chords of some of the songs his grandfather taught him, slowly. With his eyes closed, they were almost together.

His dreams that night were of a white rabbit, which spoke to him. Though he didn't know its language, he could understand it perfectly.

On the last day of the second week, Yasutora finished all of his unpacking. He visited the music store he'd seen on his way to school, where he ran into the orange-haired boy again. The boy—Ichigo—talked on and on about bands and guitar strings and the best fingerings for tricky transitions, scowling the entire time.

When he returned to his apartment, the landlady complimented him on his quiet habits and gave him a cup of soup to drink upstairs. It was very salty, and reminded Yasutora of the soup his mother used to make for him when he was sick. He didn't dream at all that night, but woke up feeling particularly well-rested.

In the middle of the third week, Yasutora finally found a shop that sold the sort of loud, colorful shirts he liked to wear. He met some guys at the music store who were starting a band and needed a guitarist. He accepted, since it would give him something to do in the evenings. At school, he got back his first assignments, with fairly good marks.

At the grocery store, there were strawberries.

Yasutora still wasn't sure if he'd ever be truly happy again. But he thought he was beginning to like Karakura.


End file.
